Jill Nebeker

When it comes to UX content, are you ever tempted to just "write your own"? You're not alone, but maybe this article by Aprill Jones, Associate Content Director at CapTech, will convince you to call on a professional. (I sure hope so.) #captech #uxwriting

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This week, I came across Maggie Appleton's term "barefoot developer." The concept is as follows: non-tech folks have been pushed to learn how to code/program (e.g., doctors, teachers). These folks may not be interested or have the time to learn. On the other end of the spectrum are professional developers. In the middle are "barefoot developers" who use pre-existing software and tweak it to meet the needs of a small group. Their needs will never be fully met by commercial products nor can they hire a professional developer. The barefoot developer is the person who creates a "home-cooked" app to fill that gap. I work in a small library and fulfill this barefoot developer role. Some of my projects have included using * JotForm to develop readers' advisory tools * Coda.io to build an interface to manage book groups * Notion to create a dashboard/homescreen for book groups * Floorplanner to design 3D models to reuse elsewhere including in home-built kiosk software What do you think of this concept and are you a "barefoot developer" for your library? If yes, what projects have you been built? Read Maggie Appleton's conference notes at https://lnkd.in/eN6yjrxw

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I wish clients didn't put so much emphasis on WCAG conformance. I wish the emphasis was on making products accessible. I mean, sure, WCAG conformance is important. But it's just a tool to help you make your product more accessible. It's also the very minimum you can do to ensure some level of accessibility. Beyond that - I wish people understood how this standard is being made. Some things that I'm being asked about are not included in the standard. Not because they aren't important to accessibility. But because there were other topics that were addressed first. Or because one interest group was able to be more vocal and convincing than another. Please stop thinking "if it's not in WCAG, it doesn't matter for accessibility".

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In addition to my talk at Write the Docs, I created the sketchnotes, which are posted here: https://lnkd.in/g5Jmej-v

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If you're looking to move into design systems leadership, the number one skill I'd recommend focusing on is facilitative leadership. In my experience, leading design systems is much different than building them. When you build design systems, you focus on things like component architecture, design + dev alignment, and producing scalable, repeatable choices. When you make the move to leading design systems, you need to participate in a very different game. You move from software systems to people systems. Here's what facilitative leadership looks like: - Creating a non-judgmental space for conversation, input, and feedback. - Connecting the dots between various organizations and priorities. - Providing teams with a framework to debate difficult decisions and then crafting diplomatic solutions. - Building bridges between cross-functional leaders. - Decreasing your own presence, so others can increase theirs. - Giving others the chance to do things they want to do, even if they haven't done it before. - Managing up. Setting realistic expectations with your leaders about what the Design System can feasibly achieve. These lessons could perhaps be applied to any move into leadership, but I've found them to be particularly important for Design Systems.

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Product is fun, complex, messy, and there are no shortcuts. Once you accept that—and embrace it—amazing things happen to your career. Cat Hicks, PhD puts this better than anyone: "Doing research with developer teams, something that really strikes me is how much people look for ways to make complex problems easy rather than make it easy to work on complex problems What I mean is, sometimes it's really useful to admit we just are trying to accomplish tough things. Asking how we can support our teams who NEED the time and space to work through that, it's often a much more tractable lever than trying to change the inherent nature of the work I think it behooves me to say as a psychologist here that I think people are actually really excellent at working on complex problems! It's one of the reasons research with developers is so great. Overall devs love to learn, love to be curious, love to innovate. It is core stuff. What would it look like if we could ask, "how do I make this the absolute best environment for complex problem-solving" instead of "how do I take away all these annoying hard problems." The stuff we want to accomplish in the world is hard. But can be joyful to accomplish."

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by all means, seek out mentorship and guidance from experienced designers. but don’t stop there. make a point of building relationships with people outside your immediate orbit. sit in on a sales call. shadow a customer support rep. ask an engineer to walk you through their code. if you really want to build a strong foundation for your career, start investing in those relationships now. you don’t need a mentor to tell you this. you don’t need anyone’s permission to start building these relationships, to start learning from the smart, passionate people around you. all you need is a bit of curiosity, a bit of humility, and not being afraid to send that message. will every conversation be a revelation? no. will every relationship be career changing? probably not. but every interaction will teach you something. and over time, those lessons will add up. they will compound. they’ll shape the way you think, the way you work, the way you solve problems. and that’s something that will serve you well no matter where your career takes you.

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On a more serious note, I'd argue that a great Product Designer should be able to perform many of the tasks of a Product Owner. A designer should be fully capable and comfortable with detailing their designs, helping to prioritize features, understanding technical constraints with developers, and contributing to the overall vision and strategy.

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If you want to learn more about how we think about Streamlit and how we design Streamlit features, check out my new post: JUST BUILD IT How we design Streamlit to bias you toward forward progress. https://lnkd.in/gQJG9dww

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My fiancée and I recently got a puppy. Let me tell you what it taught me about UX leadership… Jk. I’m looking for a job! Tl;dr — Product & UX Strategist and Leader Portfolio: https://www.schricker.info (reach out for password) Recently rolled up in layoffs. Not fun, but it’s already in the past. I’ve taken products from concept to delivery and commercial viability (a few times); untangled complex user experiences for world class financial organizations; developed new tools and processes that doubled development team output or made a small UX team able to scale; I’ve had the privilege to lead genuinely brilliant people through critical challenges. I don’t care about what I think is cool a quarter as much as I care about understanding your business goals, connecting your value proposition meaningfully to people looking for it, and ensuring that the experience of receiving that value is as seamless and value driven as possible. You want my brain on your projects. I’ve been blessed by the outpouring of support and recommendations! I appreciate it so much! I also want to shout out some incredible professionals that are currently on the market: Ambika Ramasamy is a QA Analyst who excels at developing and executing on strategies to ensure the best products. She automates analysis, leads quality assurance efforts cross-departmentally, and has elevated every project I’ve seen her a part of. My largest recent project wouldn’t have been nearly as good without her leadership and work. Matt Cuellar is a smart, efficient, affable Technical Recruiter. He recruited me to IDX. I ended up not feeling surprised at all when I got to know the company from the inside. Matt had represented the company extremely well — not shying away from struggles but speaking to the strategies the company was taking to address their challenges. He showed thorough understanding of what he was recruiting for and how it fit into the picture. I made the choice of IDX over another opportunity in part because of how well he handled the whole process. Jacob DeBenedetto front end engineer extraordinaire! (Also an award winning game developer? Sign me up. No, literally, I’m buying his next Steam release, no questions!) I only got to work closely with Jacob in the latter half of my time at IDX, but it was awesome! I brought a number of different projects to him and he always showed an enormous aptitude to digest the ask and to spin up a half dozen approaches that could be taken. Excellent with WordPress, Drupal and other CMS’s — Jacob also excels at standing up standalone builds! I’ll move mountains to try to work with him again. I’m grateful to consider all three of these individuals friends. But, if you see other IDXers open to work — know that we had some of the best professionals, just recently poor high-level navigation of the market. If you’re considering one of us for employment, know you’re considering world class talent. Thanks again! Puppies are cute. The end.

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📢 Shameless, excited plug coming! 📢 The Alpha Cohort of Manager Foundations begins next week, and I bet you or someone you know would benefit from joining us. Please share this with your networks or intro me to someone you think should know about it 💕 For: 🌟 Aspiring Managers in UX – inclusive of all disciplines 🌟 🌟 Folks stepping into Management for the first time 🌟 🌟 New-ish Managers seeking to firm up their foundations 🌟 Walk away with new tools to: 🚀 Create your Manager Profile 🚀 Lead with more Confidence 🚀 Delegate Effectively with Ease 🚀 Give Feedback that builds up 🚀 Design Weekly Systems to Scale It's a lot of value packed into four live discussions with a cohort of peers, a comprehensive Figjam with all these tools and more from me. Did I mention I ADORE that I get to work with ya'll to help Leaders in Design RISE to the level of their ambitions with more ease?! Let's do this. Link in bio, or DM with any Qs!

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"Mo Headcount, Mo Problems" - Are layoffs just part of scaling-up? 🏁 Start a business. 🚀 Sell the product. 📈 Sell more. 🧑‍💼 Hire in people. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Hire some more. Then... crickets... 📉 Layoffs. Repeat! Notorious, right? It's a common story - we sell more, we need to hire more to make it - a classic case of linear growth and short-term problem solving. How have you overcome the hurdles of hiring too fast? What metrics and measures do you observe, to know if you can support a new hire? #Design #DesignManagement #HR #Hiring #WASSAA

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Hope to see you at tomorrow's free masterclass! Covering these areas: *How to approach common UX and Service Design deliverables *Collaborative practices vs Silo death spirals *What tactical looks like, what strategic looks like *Manage stakeholders- give ’em hell, give ’em love– ignore them? *Practical tips for jump-starting Team sport UX: managing up and across *How to operationalize UX maturity- a new case study I’ve just discovered from my forthcoming book on how to manage UX. https://lnkd.in/eUCmvjXJ

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🚀 Missed my original post? Here’s another chance to check out my upcoming course! In today’s fast-paced product development, it’s easy to pack backlogs with new features and we lose sight of critical performance and usability issues. Often, usability studies focus more on new feature validation, leaving fundamental usability issues unresolved. User research is essential, but relying on it exclusively can be expensive, time-consuming, and teams overlook the benefit an expert evaluation can offer to pinpoint usability flaws early. Our UX strategy should include BOTH expert evaluation and user feedback. That’s why I’ve created "Heuristic Evaluations for Product Teams," a course designed to equip your team with the tools to master one of the most overlooked and cost-effective UX research methods. I’ve compiled best-practice design principles from the leading names in usability to create a comprehensive framework that will help you: ✅ Identify usability issues quickly and efficiently ✅ Score and prioritize issues based on severity ✅ Educate your team and stakeholders on usability best practices ✅ Develop a research plan based on your usability findings ✅ Establish best practices for AI powered products 🗓 Kicking off in November, the first cohort includes two 90-minute sessions per week for two weeks. All classes are recorded and come with an expert guide, worksheets, and class certification. 👉 I'm doing this class part-time and space is limited, sign up now to reserve your spot and hope to see you there!

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Lots of company problems could be fixed by getting 50-100 ppl in a room with A+ facilitation and senior exec air-cover and support. Why this can't / doesn't happen is a big reason why change is so hard. Change is frequently a battle of change agendas. -- That can't happen out in the open. (Some) people are desperate for someone to blame. -- That is tough in a format where it is obvious there isn't one person to blame. (Some) people are too scared to let go of the reigns -- That happens when people work together to find a solution. We're too worried to put on the breaks and step away from keyboards -- Yep, that would happen. A senior leader is having trouble providing leadership -- That would become immediately obvious...people wouldn't want to meet and work together if there wasn't some signal it would be worth it There is a strong pressure to imagine teams and groups are independent. -- This is proven false when you get teams together. Finally, there is a deep-rooted fear of collective problem solving *working*. What would that mean? What would that mean for the managers who are tasked with working things out behind the scenes? What would that mean for efforts to solve problems in private? What would that mean for the person who thinks top-down actions are the only solution?

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🚨 Sneak Peak for next week's episode of Bounce Podcast ⚫️ with Laura Baker Having empathy for users is a guiding principle for product teams. But where is our empathy for each other? Laura says it best, “Leave your ego at the door.” Product designers + managers + marketers + engineers should rally behind the problem we are solving for customers and embrace empathy for each other. Join us next week for our conversation with Laura Baker, the Global Design Leader at Fearless. Tune in on Thursday, September 12th, for a fresh perspective on nurturing culture within product teams! #Product #Leadership #ProductDesign

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How do design system teams prove their value? Finding hard metrics around the impact of design system teams has historically been a challenge. A year ago, I met the design system team at Eventbrite who could confidently say that they saved 534 days of engineering effort with their design system. Here's their calculation: Time spent to develop a component pre-design system - time spent to install the design system component = Time saved In order to extrapolate this number, though, you need to know how many times a component has been used. And, that used to require a savvy dev on the team to build something custom. That's no longer the case. We built something at zeroheight that will allow you to track component use in a single repo or across all of your repos. This should help teams show how valuable they are, plus do things like: see which components to prioritize based on use see which product teams are adopting As an added bonus, anyone using the new feature set can also monitor design system packages, allowing them to quickly see which teams are using outdated packages. On a personal note, I'm hoping with data like this, more teams can confidently quantify their impact. And along the way, we'll get better as design system practitioners at identifying the right things to work on. This new feature set is in beta and totally free. Even if you aren't using zeroheight to document your design system, you can use it. Takes like 15 minutes and you've got rich data. Here's the sign up:

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